What are your favourite historic anecdotes or stories?

When lexicographer James Murray crowd-sources the citations of the Oxford English dictionary he receives help from an unexpected source:

By accident," [Sir James Murray] continued, "my attention was called to the fact that [Dr. Minor's] address: Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire, was that of a large lunatic asylum. I assumed that perhaps he was the medical officer of that institution. But our correspondence was of course entirely limited to the dictionary and its materials and the only feeling I had towards him was that of gratitude for his immense help, with some surprise at the rare and expensive old books that he evidently had access to."

This continued for many years until one day between 1887 and 1890 the late mister Justin Windsor, librarian of Harvard College was sitting, chatting in my Scriptorium and among other things remarked, "You've given great pleasure to Americans by speaking as you do in your preface of poor Dr. Minor. This is a very painful case."

"Indeed," I said with astonishment, "in what way?"

Mister W was equally astonished to find that in all these years I'd corresponded with doctor Minor that I've neither learned nor suspected anything about him. And he then thrilled me with his story."

Source:

The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words also called The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary in North America (GoodReads). By Simon Winchester.

The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words (Wikipedia)

Further Reading:

Dr. W. C. Minor (Wikipedia) - An American A surgeon who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. (Later edit: Apparently he was born in the English colony of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and had become increasingly unwell after the war. He murdered a man, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was incarcerated at the Broadmoor asylum in the village of Crowthorne, Berkshire. Living off his pension from the Army, he was afforded reasonable accommodations and allowed to purchase books which lead to his ability to assist in providing citations for the dictionary.

Sir James Murray (Wikipedia) - Teacher, lexicographer, philologist, and finally head editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, Sir Murray was a really interesting man and likely a savant. It's worth reading the Wikipedia page about him if nothing else.

Broadmoor Hospital (formerly Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum) 1863-present (Wikipedia)

Berkshire, England (Wikipedia)

I used to post some things to /r/HistoryAnecdotes back in the early days of the subreddit. I'll post a couple of my favorites here.

Suriname, 1986-1991

Before leaving [on the mission to assassinate the Tacujana leader], the mercenaries were provided with a local guide: he was contemptuously dismissed.

[...] They were all corporals in the [French Foreign Legion's Parachute Regiment], and they thought, “We’ll just walk down this trail here, and turn off at this branch here, and that’ll take us to the village,” – about 200 kilometers away! I said to them, “You can’t go like that. The trails shown on the map might not exist anymore – the jungle grows so quickly – so take compasses and maps.” These guys told me they didn’t need maps and compasses. I repeated, “You’ve got to use them or you won’t get there. You’ll get lost and die in the jungle.” Then one of them admitted, “We can’t read the map,” which absolutely amazed me, because they were corporals in the Legion.

Mick put it like this: “We’re fucking Paras. We’re airborne. When we need to go somewhere, we parachute in, and then we get taken out after we’ve done the business. We don’t have to learn how to map-read.”

So, obviously, they got lost.

- As told by Alan 'Bowen'

Source:

Someone Else’s War: Mercenaries from 1960 to the Present, by Anthony Rogers

Notes:

The Surinamese Interior War (Dutch: Binnenlandse Oorlog) was a civil war waged in the remote interior region of Suriname between 1986 and 1992. The war was fought between the Jungle Commando led by Ronnie Brunswijk, whose members originated from the Maroon ethnic group, and the national army led by then-army chief and de facto head of state Dési Bouterse. - Wikipedia

Further Reading:

History of Suriname - Also known as "Dutch Guiana" and "Surinam." (Wikipedia)

Légion Étrangère (French Foreign Legion) (Wikipedia)

E. A. Pan: The French Foreign Legion - An American in the FFL. (Warning, Geocities-level website with a green background. Great perspective on the modern FFL and with more links to FFL stuff.)

Rhodesian Light Infantry - One of Rhodesia's primary counter-insurgency (COIN) units during the Rhodesian Bush War (1964-1979) and composed of some foreign nationals, including Australian and American veterans of the Vietnam War as well as Canadians, British, and South Africans.

J.P. Morgan was feared and seemingly unapproachable, but his son “Jack” Morgan was both business savvy and personable:

He had a marvelous sense of humor which surprised many people who imagined that Morgan bankers must be dour and self-important. He once said of an enemy that if he had ordered a trainload of sons-of-bitches and received only that man, he would consider that order amply filled.

Source:

The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance, (2001) ISBN 0-8021-3829-2 by Ron Chernow.

Notes:

I have a couple other anecdotes (and of a more quirky historical flair) from this book if anyone is interested in some excerpts about the Morgan family or tycoons, generally.

Further Reading:

John Pierpont Morgan – Interesting if you’re into reading about tycoons and “industrial consolidation” in the US, such as the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric, or the rise of America as a financier of European powers.

J.P. “Jack” Morgan, Jr. – A vastly more interesting person who expanded the Morgan financial empire during two world wars and beyond.

The Progressive Era – Social activism and political reform from the 1890s to the 1920s.

The Sherman Antitrust Act – Trust-busting!